DAILY ALMANAC
Today is Thursday, Oct. 7, the 280th day of 2021. There are 85 days left in the year.
On this date:
1765: The Stamp Act Congress convened in New York to draw up colonial grievances against England.
1849: Author Edgar Allan Poe died in Baltimore at age 40.
1910: A major wildfire devastated the northern Minnesota towns of Spooner and Baudette, charring at least 300,000 acres; some 40 people are believed to have died.
1949: The Republic of East Germany was formed.
1954: Marian Anderson became the first Black singer hired by the Metropolitan Opera Company in New York.
1985: Palestinian gunmen hijacked the Italian cruise ship Achille Lauro in the Mediterranean. (The next day, the hijackers shot and killed Leon Klinghoffer, a Jewish-american tourist in a wheelchair, and pushed him overboard, before surrendering on Oct. 9.)
1991: University of Oklahoma law professor Anita Hill publicly accused Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas of making sexually inappropriate comments when she worked for him; Thomas denied Hill's allegations.
1992: Trade representatives of the United States, Canada and Mexico initialed the North American Free Trade Agreement during a ceremony in San Antonio, Texas, in the presence of President George H.W. Bush, Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney and Mexican President Carlos Salinas de Gortari.
1996: Fox News Channel made its debut.
1998: Matthew Shepard, a gay college student, was beaten and left tied to a wooden fencepost outside of Laramie, Wyoming; he died five days later. (Russell Henderson and Aaron Mckinney are serving life sentences for Shepard's murder.)
2001: The war in Afghanistan started as the United States and Britain launched air attacks against military targets and Osama bin Laden's training camps in the wake of the September 11 attacks.
2003: California voters recalled Gov. Gray Davis and elected Arnold Schwarzenegger their new governor.
2004: President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney conceded that Saddam Hussein had no weapons of mass destruction as they tried to shift the Iraq war debate to a new issue, arguing that Saddam was abusing a U.N. oilfor-food program.
TV personality Joy Behar (“The View”) is 79. Musician John Mellencamp is 70. Drummer Tico Torres of Bon Jovi is 68. Actor Christopher Norris (“Trapper John, M.D.”) is 66. Cellist
Yo-yo Ma is 66. Gospel singer Michael W. Smith is 64. Actor Judy Landers (“Vega$,” “BJ and the Bear”) is 63. Reality competition judge Simon Cowell is 62. Guitarist
Charlie Marinkovich (Iron Butterfly) is 62. Actor Paula Newsome (“Chicago Med,” “Barry”) is 60. Singer Toni Braxton is 54. Singer Thom Yorke of Radiohead is 53. Actor Nicole Ari Parker (“Murder in the First,” “Soul Food”) is 51. Singer Taylor Hicks (“American Idol”) is 45. Actor
Omar Miller (“The Unicorn,” “CSI: Miami”) is 43.